An article written by two Atlantic Council employees that argues Washington should consider a more realistic approach to Russia caused quite the stir within the think tank.
The article, written by Emma Ashford and Mathew Burrows, says the US should “avoid a human-rights-first approach to Russia.” The authors suggest that the Biden administration should instead “seek to build a less aspirational policy toward Russia, minimize the use of sanctions, and look for incentives that might induce Moscow to take steps in line with US interests.”
Ashford and Burrows make an argument grounded in reality. The US does not have the power to control what happens inside Russia through sanctions and other unilateral means. The authors are not at all sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin and don’t even suggest lifting sanctions that are currently in place. But at the hyper-interventionist Atlantic Council, the idea of taking a less hostile approach to Russia is out of the question to many of its employees.
Twenty-two Atlantic Council fellows signed a statement denouncing the article. “Their article is premised on a false assumption that human rights and national interests are wholly separate,” the statement reads. The statement ignores the fact that Washington cooperates with many countries with questionable human rights records, including some of the Atlantic Council’s top donors.
In the 2019 fiscal year, the embassy of the United Arab Emirates contributed over $1 million to the Atlantic Council. The UAE’s state oil company also chipped in over $250,000 for the think tank. Abu Dhabi is not the only Gulf monarchy that funds the Atlantic Council, the embassy of Bahrain donated somewhere between $100,000 and $249,000.
While the Atlantic Council’s Gulf funding is rarely questioned, the article from Ashford and Burrows caused some of its employees to complain about recent donations from Charles Koch, who funds the libertarian Cato Institute that advocates for a less interventionist foreign policy.
The Atlantic Council received a $4.5 million donation over five years from Koch that set up the New American Engagement Initiative (NAEI) and brought over some experts from the Cato Institute, including Ashford. According to its website, the NAEI aims to question the “prevailing assumptions governing US foreign policy, in particular with respect to the efficacy of military intervention and the lost potential of diplomacy.”
Atlantic Council fellows that signed the statement denouncing Ashford and Burrow’s article made it clear that to them, questioning US aggression is akin to spreading Russian propaganda. “The Koch industry operates as a Trojan horse operation trying to destroy good institutions and they have pretty much the same views as the Russians,” one person that signed the letter told Politico.
“The general view at the Atlantic Council is to send them back to the Cato Institute where they came from,” another person that signed the statement said. While they all had harsh words for Ashford and Burrow’s article, the people that spoke with Politico who signed the statement refused to go on the record and spoke anonymously.
One signatory to the statement did go on record in his criticism and published an article responding to Ashford and Burrow’s argument. Dylan Myles-Primakoff, who heads the Free Russia Foundation at the Atlantic Council, wrote a piece titled “America’s Russia policy must not ignore human rights.”
Myles-Primakoff argued that “Russia’s domestic politics and its foreign policy are inextricably linked.” His main example for this was what he described as the 2014 “invasion” of Ukraine that resulted in Russia annexing Crimea. Myles-Primakoff said the annexation of Crimea had a purpose in “Russia’s domestic politics.” He said the Russian government “sought to convince Russians that the inevitable result of a popular reform movement like Ukraine’s Euromaidan was not dignity and democracy, but violence and chaos.”
Myles-Primakoff is right that the Euromaidan protests that led to the ouster of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was democratically elected, caused Russia to annex Crimea, but he ignores crucial context. First, referendum after referendum shows the largely ethnic Russian population of Crimea favored joining the Russian Federation. This is also demonstrated by the fact that what Myles-Primakoff called an “invasion” was met with no violent resistance.
Second, Myles-Primakoff makes no mention of Washington’s role in the ouster of Yanukovych. The US threw its full weight behind the opposition in Ukraine during demonstrations in 2013 and 2014, an opposition that even had a neo-nazi element. A few weeks before Yanukovych was forced out, a recording of a phone call between then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and Victoria Nuland, who was working in the State Department at the time, was leaked and released on YouTube. In the now-infamous phone call, Nuland and Pyatt discussed who should replace the government of Yanukovych.
Like the ethnic Russians in Crimea, the ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region also rejected the post-coup government in Kyiv, sparking the war that has killed tens of thousands. The context of US involvement in the coup that sparked these events is crucial, especially when discussing what US foreign policy should look like in that part of the world. There’s an argument to be made that neither the annexation of Crimea nor the war in the Donbas would have happened the way it did if not for US intervention.
Myles-Primakoff took issue with Ashford and Burrows pointing out that US-Russia relations began rapidly declining around the 2011 and 2012 protests in Russia. Ashford and Burrows write: “US-Russia relations declined markedly in 2011-12 after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced support for protests in Moscow.” Myles-Primakoff says this line ignores the context of what was happening in Russia at the time and blames Putin’s decision to run for a third term and alleged fraud in the 2011 parliamentary elections for the damage that was done to the US-Russia relationship at the time.
But Myles-Primakoff again misses the mark with his argument. In 2011, Clinton voiced support for protesters in Russia and voiced concern over claims of fraud in the parliamentary elections. Putin responded by accusing Clinton of inciting protests. “They heard the signal and with the support of the US State Department began active work,” Putin said.
Myles-Primakoff described Putin’s comments as a “wild conspiratorial response.” While Putin may have been overstating it, he had real reasons to fear that the US was funding protesters and opposition groups in Russia. Clinton based her claims of election fraud on a report from an election monitoring organization known as Golos, which was accusing the Russian government of violating election laws before votes were cast in the 2011 parliamentary election.
At the time, Golos was funded by the US government through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Golos was also receiving money from the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization that presents itself as a private company but is funded almost entirely by the US government.
The US government was also funding political parties inside Russia at the time. “We had been offering political training to every political party in Russia, to Putin’s own party, to the Communists, but also to Putin’s opponents,” Victoria Nuland told PBS in 2017 when discussing the 2011 elections. Although Nuland said the US was training Putin’s United Russia party through the NED and similar organizations, the party had rejected earlier claims from Nuland that they got funding from USAID.
With the US so deeply entrenched in Russia’s politics in 2011, Washington certainly had ways to influence Putin’s opposition, and these facts make the Russian president seem less paranoid than Myles-Primakoff would like readers to believe. Russia’s Central Electoral Commission eventually issued a report on the 2011 elections and found out of the 1686 reports on irregularities they investigated, 11.5 percent were confirmed to be true. Only 60 of the complaints were claims that voting results were falsified. In 2012, Putin kicked USAID out of Russia.
Myles-Primakoff also addresses jailed Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who Ashford and Burrows described as “an open nationalist who is widely known to agree with Putin on many foreign policy questions; he backed the Russian seizure of Crimea and has made racist and Islamophobic remarks.”
Myles-Primakoff rebuked the claim that Navalny “backed” the annexation of Crimea by using a quote from Navalny in 2014. The opposition figure said, “Crimea was seized with egregious violations of all international regulations.” While this is a real quote from Navalny, Myles-Primakoff presented it out of context. Navalny made the comment while explaining that if he were president of Russia, he would not return Crimea to Ukraine.
Here’s what Navalny said in October 2014: “Crimea, of course, now de facto belongs to Russia. I think that despite the fact that Crimea was seized with egregious violations of all international regulations, the reality is that Crimea is now part of Russia. Let’s not deceive ourselves. And I would also strongly advise Ukrainians not to deceive themselves.”
Myles-Primakoff did not challenge the assertion that Navalny is a nationalist who has made racist and Islamophobic remarks. Due to past comments Navalny made, Amnesty International revoked his status as a prisoner of conscience, which is being spun by Western media as the result of a Russian government-backed smear campaign, but Amnesty denies that claim. “Reports that Amnesty’s decision was influenced by the Russian state’s smear campaign against Navalny are untrue,” the rights group said in a statement.
Ashford and Burrows also touch on what is perhaps the most important aspect of the US-Russia relationship: arms control. They argue that focusing on human rights inside Russia interferes with progress on arms control. Myles-Primakoff says this argument is irrelevant because Russia decided to extend New START, the vital nuclear treaty that would have expired in February, amid threats of sanctions from the new Biden administration. But extending New START is the bare minimum Washington and Russia could do.
As the two largest nuclear powers, the US and Russia have an obligation to the world to negotiate new treaties to dismantle their enormous arsenals. With the Biden administration slapping new sanctions on Russia over Navalny, it makes it much harder for Moscow and Washington to negotiate a new treaty. New START had a built-in five-year extension, so renewing the treaty took little more than a phone call. A brand new treaty would require good faith.
But most funders of the Atlantic Council have no interest in nuclear treaties or easing tensions with Moscow. The think tank receives contributions from the top US weapons makers, including Raytheon, General Atomics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. The Atlantic Council is also funded by NATO, an alliance that has an interest in keeping tensions high and presenting Russia’s annexation of Crimea as an unprovoked “invasion.”
With these facts in mind, it’s no surprise that Ashford and Burrows’ article caused such a stir within the Atlantic Council. By making such a fuss over a mild criticism of Washington’s hostile approach to Russia, the Atlantic Council fellows showed their hand.
It would be impossible to unpack the total delusions, lies, fact free arguments of these cretins at Atlantic Council.
After all, their position, salary, hence career, depends on the lies, russiaphobia-it is not a successful route to wonder if this stupidity really makes any sense at all.
Notably, this quote says it all:
While they all had harsh words for Ashford and Burrow’s article, the people that spoke with Politico who signed the statement refused to go on the record and spoke anonymously.
They must justify the defense budget and alliances. That is the one overwhelming need that explains all else. Every other explanation runs into the problem of being applied only where convenient.
It’s Swiftean, both contesting which side has the truth of a falsehood.
The funniest/craziest thing is that the article these people object to, that “the US should “avoid a human-rights-first approach to Russia””, it itself a ridiculous case of covering capitalist/imperial policy in human rights clothing.
In other words, the US never had a humans-rights first approach … we are not doing what we do in re to China, Russia, Iran, or any of the rest for human rights, democracy, or any other benign reason and getting is wrong, as is the allowed/tolerated range of expressed opinion on MSM. No, we do not mean well, we mean business! As Smedley Butler put it so long ago, war (and the US’s general foreign policy) is a racket.”
The reason the Atlantic crowd get agitated is not a fundamental disagreement with the “realist” crowd … no, they both agree the world is theirs for the looting. The disagreement is over means and methods. The Atlantic crowd want a thick veneer of “human rights” while funded by bone-saw people. The Realists prefer less dissembling and better-focused looting.
That the US should comply with president Washington’s “peace and free trade with all, entangling alliances with none” is not even in the running in the imperial capital, thought he great majority of the citizens would support it.
Well, by Washington you mean protectionist trade and peace with all. The two are what built the US. Now, the US pursues the opposite.
Coolidge might not have said the business of America is business, but it’s a good quote. The US needs to focus on developing productive industry within the US, not on parasitical waste for elite interests. If defence needs to be run by the government, Smedley Butler’s possible solution, then do it. But the focus needs to be on the citizenry and on the economy that supports them.
You can have protectionist trade or you can have peace with all. It’s one or the other. Protectionist trade inevitably leads to war either over trade itself, or because it drives the protectionist regime’s populace to such dire straits of poverty and joblessness that an external enemy has to be drummed up to play “let’s you and them fight with” lest the regime be overthrown.
Applied theory shows the opposite happening repeatedly. It has worked for every current Asian power. It’s like a trade union but at state-level.
You’re an anarchist. In your view, a government can never be used for anything more than the betterment of those in charge. That’s just not true. There are higher level arguments for and against protecting trade. But, you’re not even there.
Using your reasoning, there’s little need for militaries or much else that governments provide…
“Using your reasoning, there’s little need for militaries or much else that governments provide.”
Correct. Molinari ably explained nearly 200 years ago how the private sector could provide for law and defense. Militaries exist to protect regimes and suppress people, not vice versa.
You mean like the white supremacist militias that stormed the Capitol,
I for one prefer them to the sad sack National Guardsmen impressed into protecting that whorehouse.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to with that reference.
I haven’t read Gustave de Molinari. If he has a an argument, he should be taught. That sounds like it’d actually be interesting, as opposed to university soft science courses.
Your welcome to have them as your neighbors, I will pass
I think history does not support your argument that private sector can provide for defense and law. Not in the least.
Private sector can provide defense of its interests, which are ALWAYS the interests of the plutocrats that run the show, not the mythical, idealized small business owners.
We have seen it before — feudalism, followed by various forms of monarchies that fronted for big business and finance. People had little choice but to sign up and die in their wars. And for the plutocrats to run justice system — please!
Your argument is winning at present, as our Republic is dying. It mimicked British Empire, and the state of laws that replaced monarchy — never stood up on its feet.
Having successfully passed on all the wealth onto plutocracy, our Republic’s coffers are empty and in debt. Our Republican state institutions are an empty shell.
President is an empty suit, Congress a conveyor belt of transferring more power to plutocracy. Desperate states and local governments will put on the cheerful face and explain scientifically to plebes why cities could be run by corporation. Even BLM helped the process along by “defund the police”, and privatize, what else.
Our discussions here are not productive as we are captives of terminology without clear understanding of its meaning.
Take “sanctions”. They are embargoes, aimed at harming the economies of targeted states. Take “protectionism”. There is dumb protectionism and smart protectionism. The first aims to use power of state to keep their advantages.
Such was British attempt at prohibiting export of industrial innovations such as mechanical looms and textile mills, steam engine, etc. even forbidding emigration of skilled workers in those fields. US however encouraged theft of those plans on highest levels. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton — all were champions of spies that brought technology home. They were rewarded financially and were allowed to patent those in US.
French Continental Blockade, an embargo meant to harm British economy was unsuccessful as British already had trade with Asia and Latin America. US attempts at embargo on Russia and China will not succeed either.
US imposed its own embargo against British leading up to war in 1812 when US declared war against British Empire. It was meant to be a shrewd move, as in June of 1812 it was only Russia standing in Napoleonic wars.
Anticipating Napoleon win, US expected to take British Northern Territories. US was in 1812 well on its way to emulate European militarism.
At the time of dying monarchies — dying due to industrialization and money it brought — plutocracy of money started to shape the new era.
But in Britain, small enterprises that created industrial revolution were deprived of capital by the end of Napoleonic wars when Britain had debt twice its GDP. The industrial revolution continued in US, with major victories in steam ship building.
England, in spite of its wealth in trade and opulent Victorian era, never really recovered. Post WWI gains of Ottoman colonies were not sufficient to face another plutocracy rising in Germany.
Smart protectionism was on display for over half a century in China. It protected its nascent industries, but invited investments as well. How did it succeed? By insuring that they do NOT give away their public capital for free to private sector.
Land, facilities, utilities, roads, ports, airports and railways, and all admin costs — all are capital investment and an on-going expense to be reimbursed from private profits. And whenever DIRECTLY linked to a private investment — they negotiated share of future profits. Not a paperclip was given away to investors.
Bad, bad China. Instead of having plutocrats get those assets and money under “contracts” as we do, China has the nerve to demand that taxpayer (“state”) capital be treated as REAL money! To be invested in foreign and domestic private sector industry and reap profits. Their “state” or better put taxpayer coffers as a result are not empty.
In our land of plutocracy, our capital is given away to a corporation to produce a new generation fighter plane, for which we will get a few planes, The technology being new, our government employees are conducting research, design, evaluation and testing for free. And when money is spent, corporation wants more, or it delivers product with many flaws, so we pay for enhancements! President is then arms producers salesman, and taxpayer gets nothing of those sales!
Arguing that US should abandon in all but appearance its republican experiment and return to European feudal/plutocratic roots — is not wise.
We are already victims of this “private sector” mantra by gutting public interest as we gave away the store to plutocrats. Now, we are expecting the same rapacious interests to actually have mercy on the population?
We have given away our assets and money not to advance common interests, but to enrich the select. We have to pay high taxes to keep up the bureaucracy, as money is gone, and debts are piling up.
While in China their public assets and money are making money, and as a result their taxes are LOW. Their corporations pay for all they use, and shareholder, the taxpayer get profit on its investment.
As for wars — the more power plutocrats have the more wars they need. As they are afraid of a conflagration that may unleash nuclear war — they think the good old British ways of proxy fighting, regional wars and animosities will do the trick. Let the natives fight and they will come in as peacemaker, advance further plutocratic plunder by enlisting local plutocrats. You see, we are so smart, they dumb.
As if there is a country left that does not know that. Our color revolutions are exhausted. From Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan or South Korea — they know it.
But the prize goes to India’s Modi for his short speech at US sponsored Quad summit. Prosperity to everyone, animosity towards none. Not a single allusion to China and the ostensible purpose of the group — embargo of China.
Our gradual and now rampant feudalization under plutocratic model has already resulted in our stalled scientific and technological foundation. We would deceive ourselves to think otherwise.
We need to pull the reigns on this rampant and chaotic “privatization” that has destroyed the integrity in scientific research – from universities to private labs.
Without a well-led taxpayers revolt we will get nowhere, and the grabbing of what is left in our possession will proceed apace,
History is a good teacher, but I am afraid that we are not good students.
Going down the path of plutocratic feudalism will result in a very predictable feuding, not common welfare. In powerless suffering not empowerment. And various and growing victim groups are enlisted in the fracturing of our republican institutions, while plutocratic corporate structures already control our military.
Yes, robber barons are back with vengeance. But once upon the time they had powerless native Americans standing in their way to exploit the continent. Enough wealth was made to even have the most humble of us have a decent living. The country of laws was taking shape.
But that kind of stability was constraining, and plutocracy asserted itself. Plutocrats have one defining characteristic — they believe that all wealth in and on earth belongs to them — and the expenditures for the needs of population is at their sufferance. Just as once Kings or feudal lords felt.
The only defense is — population organized through state institutions. We are going backwards today,
Plutocrats already have armies defending them — in federal and state administrations, think tanks, media, academia, quasi- state institutions like NED, etc. Their tentacles are international, in IMF, international banks.
Internally, Trump was a phenomena that typifies the time. Exposed fault lines, uncovered for public viewing all the external and internal weaknesses. With not a clue what to do about it — other than lashing out.
But the world of those we stupidly call our enemies is by far more sophisticated and stronger than we allow to entertain. And this hubris is where the danger lies.
“I think history does not support your argument that private sector can provide for defense and law.”
And then you follow up that thought with numerous examples of the state doing what the state does (“provide defense of its interests, which are ALWAYS the interests of the plutocrats that run the show”) and pretend that that’s “the private sector.”
When are you going to stop blaming non-state actors for the atrocities committed by the form of governance you support?
You willfully misunderstand. I am sure you understand very well that I am blaming and will continue to blame the plutocracy that has taken over the institutions of the state.
You are the only person I know that keeps in defending the plutocracy that controls the whorehouse called our state institutions. And the only one that advocates that these plutocrats come right out, sweep away what is left of them, to rule directly fulfilling their every whim.
Your advocacy of the role of plutocrats hopefully is not that naive as to not notice what they do. Plutocrats run our bureaucracies, write our laws, manage our intelligence and decide what is.in our media. Our corruption ridden government, this “form of governance” that exists today is utterly and completely controlled by your “non-state actors.
It is not the FORM OF GOVERNANCE that is the problem but its CONTENT and the plutocrats that pull all the levers.
Hollow as it is — it is well worth preserving, reforming and modernizing. Once you turn everything over to the plutocrats — you cannot have it back. Plutocrats do not care about what we the little pawns think. They are tired of paying for auditioning new actors for a show called elections.
Defending turning government over to private sector would spare the oligarchs the cost and uncertainty of the process.
I do not wish to live under the fiefdoms of feuding plutocrats, that could not care less for the wellbeing of population — no controls, no accountability. After all — just like Facebook or Twitter —they will not have to worry about such idiocies as freedom of speech. After all, they are PRIVATE platforms and can do what they please. What is next? Will not deliver things for you — Amazon is private? Give you food, education or medical care?
We are well on our way to that dystopian society — few of those that see where this is heading are not the problem.
For as long as majority will accept that it is “BAD STATE” committing atrocities — so it can be ditched. I suggest it is “BAD PEOPLE” that are doing bad things. As we have SAME POLICIES no matter the presidency or changes in Congress —it suggests that we have plutocracy that is determined to get their way.
We can start very simple. How about removing plutocrats from getting the right to manage ANY part of our intelligence, producing reports that the managing plutocrat desires? And employees of such contracted out functions to have their performance appraised by those sworn to protect the country, not by a plutocrat that owns media and global consortium of corporations and banks.
No thank you. Such dystopia is not for humans. And yes, they will happily replace us by robots that do not complain or have a sick child or elderly parents to care about.
“I am sure you understand very well that I am blaming and will continue to blame the plutocracy that has taken over the institutions of the state.”
Yes, I understand that.
What you don’t understand is that the state, by definition, is an institution of plutocracy.
Or, as Marx put it (and Lenin unintentionally proved), the state is the executive committee of the ruling class. It always has been and it always will be. That is its form and that is its function. Imagining that it can be something else is utopian fantasizing.
I do not agree that a state by definition is an institution of plutocracy. We are a plutocracy, but it is not always the case of every state.
Over last millennium with many setbacks came also major advancements in state governance — accompanied by the advancement in the rule of law and better quality of life of ordinary people.
Better organized states with the rule of law ALWAYS offered better lives to people then chaotic states and anarchies.
Good states are not banana republics where a state is weak and corporation controls the populace for the sake of profit. Be those profits in bananas, rubber, sugar or anything else.
Institutions of state have primary role in brokering a balance between the interest of the society as a whole and the interests of the powerful private individuals.
When a state fails in that function, it becomes a plutocracy. Plutocracy is deviation, not a norm.
France before the revolution was a plutocracy. Plutocrats in France simply saw no value to aristocracy, it cost too much. State was toppled by force, and brought destruction to France as well as all of Europe in Napoleonic wars.
State is also an invisible social contract with mutually reinforcing interests. When it can no longer protect the population from the predatory interests — the bonds are broken.
As for Marx, he is in my view a much better theoretical economist then political scientist.
Lenin? Obama of his time. Wrote good speeches. He left practical matters to Trotsky.
Russian revolution was an example of a failed aristocracy led state that did not protect population from predatory interests.
State lost control when the bulk of military changed loyalty and ABANDONED ruling aristocracy.
The pendulum of history always swings — at times to a dark place, and at times finding a balance, a positively happier place. No utopia here, but a hard historic reality.
Let us assume plutocrats succeed
and no state exists to abridge their power.
Without reforms managed by a state, status quo is never sustainable. Why not private sector initiated reforms one can ask?
Private sector competes. Without a state as a broker of interests things will fall apart. Center — the state — must hold, Do we really need to experience the very predictable anarchy being loosed upon our world?
“I do not agree that a state by definition is an institution of plutocracy”
Then you live in a fantasy world.
AKA, the Medic’s of Florence in the late middle age, 1450’s ?
Yes, because a Grand Duchy and four popes are “the private sector.”
I was trying to determine what a political animal Knapp is, after all its his posting. Is he a communists, a socialist, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Anti-Americanist, Antifa, Qanon, Libertarian, Populist, Cavemannist, cultural pluralist, Civil libertarian, 1980’s counter culturalist, , NAZI, Vegenist, BLM, Anti-Femenist, Knappist, cancel culturalist. We know for sure he is an ardent Anti-Zionist and claims to have Jewish friends. Now you,Luchorpan, have added another “ist” anarchist to the list. Perhaps Thomas L. Knapp can answer that questions, at his discretion.
“I was trying to determine what a political animal Knapp”
Well, here’s a hint. I answer to “libertarian” and/or “market anarchist.”
“We know for sure he is an ardent Anti-Zionist and claims to have Jewish friends.”
I used to be a Zionist, although not necessarily a particularly ardent one. I turned against Zionism as such because at some point it became obvious that there’s not much difference between Zionism and any other race-based/tribal/ethnic identity politics. I still defend Israel against absurd accusations because the truth is important.
Yes, I have Jewish friends, some of whom are Zionists, some of whom are not, and some of whom are anti-Zionists. I also have Jewish ancestry, but far enough back that I never knew them or had a chance to learn their opinions (they appear in my family tree well before Israel, or even Herzl, appeared on the world stage).
“at some point it became obvious that there’s not much difference between Zionism and any other race-based/tribal/ethnic identity politics” If this was a universal believe in the past and now, there would be no Zionism, ant-Semitism,Haulocaust
You were looking for my comment why Jews are
safe or not living in the US,Now you know by now that I don posses your penmanship of the Queens English, of which I have been mangling from time to time, but that’s life.
Reading Jewish Newspapers’, only a few left, 2 Jewish-themed TV channels can be found on the major HD networks. All the shootings and killings of Jews Synagogues and Jewish businesses are well documented in the last 4 years. Not a week or day goes by without a Jewish cemetery or Temple being desecrated in the US, including mine about a month ago that was invaded, trashes and several religious items broken and stolen. Anti-Semitic graffiti on the front doors and in the Sanctuary. Every Jewish Synagogue in America if they can afford it, has Police guards during services now, this is the first time I have seen this in this Temple or any other.. At white supremacy rallies, we see many members wearing shirts and jackets with anti-Semitic slogans, just as we saw during the storming of the Capitol. Religious Jews are attacked wearing the skull cap walking streets in their neighborhoods. Generally speaking, Jews are not safe anymore living in America alert watching where they are, what they do and what they say. When we lived in the West Side of Cleveland, some 20 years ago not known as a Jewish area, we were getting constant anti-Semitic mail. When our 8 and 10-year-old kids were called Jew names in the neighborhood we decided to move out. This hate, not only comes from the radical right white supremacist “master race” but also from the radical Muslims. In the last 4 years, there is an increase in immigration from the US to Israel, last year it increased to over 30,000 people. South America has been hit very hard with Anti Semitism. Since the takeover of Venezuela by the Socialist Chavez/Maduro dictators, most of the 250,000 Jews have left for Israel US, and Canada We befriended a family who had to leave Caracas when they were fired from their jobs. In
Chicago the Woman found work with Telemundo as a scriptwriter, the same job she held for a TV station in Caracas. After 6 months on the job, she asked for a day off for the Jewish High Holiday. When she came back to work on Monday she found out that she was let go. Obviously, they dint know before they hired her that she was Jewish. Argentina is another country where Jews are leaving, same reasons as everywhere else. After WW ll, Argentina became a haven for German High ranking officers, many war criminals wanted by the four powers were being hiddenite with approval of Juan Person, Dictator of Argentina. In 1960 the Mossad found Adolph Eichman, the architect of Hitler’s Final Solution of the Jews in Europe. They caught him and smuggled him out of Argentina to stand trail in Israel, the trial lasted for 2 years, found him guilty shoot by summary execution. Ever since then it was downhill for the Jews of Argentina. Jewish students in Colleges across the US are being constantly ostracized by mostly Muslim students and others regarding B DS and the situation in the West Bank and Israel. To some, it got so bad that they transferred to other countries but not England, it’s the worst place for Jew to be in Europe, besides France, of the 260,000 Jews left in France after WW-2, in the last 5 years some 150,000 have left for Israel. Quebec/Canada and other countries, not too many came to America. Most of them are professionals and found Jobs fairly quickly. Something that’s not talked about very much is that when Israel was declared a sovereign nation by the UN in 1947, over 800,000 Jews living in Arab countries were expulsed. In most Arab countries they were given 10 days to pack up and leave. Many have been living there for hundreds of years and especially since the Spanish Inquisition. They left all of their belongings, businesses bank accounts all their possessions. Most of them left for Israel. They were coming when the 1948 war was still going on with their families On arrival. some young men were given an old Enfield Rifle, a dozen
bullets, and asked to fight, Non of them ever held a rifle in their hands. In about 45-50 years when America will be mostly Latinized and run mostly by a Brown/Black coalition, based on prior experience Jews have not fared well in Latino Countries, Jews never did well living in Socialist Countries, America will be that. I believe the USA will become an autocratic Country with a much-revised constitution.Israel must exist as a Jewish State because it will be the last refuge and fortress for Jews for the next 100 years.. And as sure as the Sun appears in the east every morning, history will repeat itself for the Jewish people as it has for the last 2000 years.
At white supremacy rallies, we see many members wearing shirts and jackets with anti-Semitic slogans, just as we saw during the storming of the Capitol.
I saw quite a few Israeli flags too. They’re all the rage at the skinhead rallies just across the pond too.
Birds of a feather…
He’s a left-anarchist, part Jewish, true anarchist, not secretly defending Israel but not hating it. If you follow his comments and positions, he’s extremely consistent. Most people seem to advocate for something behind a facade of an ideology. He doesn’t, that I’ve seen.
He doesnt like elites, states, institutions. It’s like Conan burning down a corrupt cult. But I’m on the opposite side. I tend to defend things.
At least during our protectionist phase we won those wars… We prospered too.
Yes, the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 certainly produced “prosperity.”
The Fordney-McCumber Tariff gave Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge the revenue to offset the slashing of Wilson’s income taxes, igniting that most dynamic of decades — the Roaring ’20s.
That the Smoot-Hawley Tariff caused the Depression of the 1930s is a New Deal myth in which America’s schoolchildren have been indoctrinated for decades.
The Depression began with the crash of the stock market in 1929, nine months before Smoot-Hawley became law. The real villain: The Federal Reserve, which failed to replenish that third of the money supply that had been wiped out by thousands of bank failures.
Better do your homework!
The depression started in 1929 and created before that. Smoot Hawley is just an excuse for elite economists to falsely justify the depression.
The depression dragged on for a decade after Smoot-Hawley. The Fed shot America in the foot and Smoot-Hawley took a ball-peen hammer to America’s hands.
Is China a fair trader, since our Companies have to deal with China Inc who is one big corporation who even prints its own money. China has pricing power that Capitalistic entities don’t have.
“Our” companies don’t “have” to deal with “China Inc.” at all. But they should be free to do so if they choose.
According to many corporations, they do have that choice. Ford, Nike, Apple, etc.
In 2020 America imported 3.9 trillion $$, exported 2.6 trillion $$, how can one call that protectionism. Show me another country that has this kind of imballance.There are a few countries in South America, Africa and Asia who have accumulated so many dollars that they have adopoted it as their second National Currency, although they cant print US currency.
The US is not protectionist today. It was, however, built with protectionist trade. We have today what “experts” wrongly call “free trade” but is really America-last managed trade.
There’s a simple explanation. Those in charge of US policy direct it for their interests at the expense of the rest of the US.
Alan Tonelson on twitter writes on trade. Ian Fletcher wrote a book, the book, on protectionist trade. There are other books, but it’s the one to read to learn the topic.
You can also look up Aristotle: 3 types of government with 2 variations each, one with a government serving the whole, the other with a government exploiting society. Basically, if society is an organism, the US isnt functioning well. It’s akin to a person overeating and not exercising, a problem with management.
Focusing by U.S. think tanks on human rights in other countries is, hypocritically, designed not only to attack the familiar Russia target (as in this case) but also to lessen attention toward the miserable human rights situation in the U.S., based largely but not entirely upon racism. The U.S. situation goes without much attention by other world governments which are not inclined to get involved in another country’s domestic situations including human rights. It’s just something we must live with. The preponderance of influence by the so-called analysts and experts, financed by corporations, is what in large part drives US policy when the citizens are denied any democratic voice on issues.
The US is obsessed with white racism, but it can’t find much of it. Currently, Asians keep getting attacked in the US by blacks. But the media claims white people are doing the attacks.
How about this: Treat people the same. No? Why not?
Come on, there has been no evidence that even one Black has attacked Asian Americans.
“According to the Justice Department,
27.5% of all violent crimes against Asian Americans in 2018 were
committed by black people. That’s over 50,000 incidents in a single
year. White criminals and Asian criminals each accounted for 24.1% of
all attacks on Asians.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/anti-asian-violence-cant-be-blamed-on-trump-supporters
But congrats, you have a white guy attacking people for prostitution, and you get to declare race is the issue there, because finally a white guy is the perp.
A real argument for the US as white racist could be made regarding US foreign policy but not domestic. In truth, the empire would just as happily starve white people, but current victims of the empire are mostly not European.
Is that a riddle ?
The same Neocons who want to invade the world also want to invite their victims to move into the US. That isn’t racism. That’s empire. In their eyes, a person is either useful to them or is their enemy.
Why is it white racism when Obama destroys Libya and restores the enslavement of black Africans there? And why does “white” mean Anglo in one context, but when looking at Israel suddenly it means Jewish? The definitions change so you can just blame everything on “white.”
Obama was in charge when the US was aiding actual Nazis in the Ukraine. Did white people make him do it?
If someone in the Middle East, or India, or Central Asia makes an attack, suddenly he’s “white” too. The definition expands and contracts at need. Or someone like Zimmerman, who was part white, suddenly becomes “white” as it’s useful. It’s absurd.
You like giving Russia, China, Iran, and others a pass on Human rights violations, but when it comes to Israel, you are relentless of accusing Israel of nonexistent, non factual, non-evidential human rights violations.
Only the evidence of our lying eyes.
US policy on Russia is not focused on human rights. It is focused on finding excuses to bash Russia.
If human rights were the real concern, it would apply in many more cases. It gets this focus ONLY for those the US opposes for other reasons.
Another example is Iran. It has human rights issues, but for every such issue our allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf are ALL worse, many of them much worse. So what is the motive? It isn’t the human rights. That is the excuse.
An easy example: India. Why doesn’t the US bash India? Oh… Can’t talk about India…
And I have no interesting in the US intervening, but India is worse than Russia…
IN recent surveys, 48% of Russians don’t approve Putin’s leadership, 73 % say their economy is worse now then it was in the past. yet we see so many on this blog anyway gushing over Putin and his policies.
I would imagine that 48% of Americans don’t approve of Biden’s policies now that he has some. 73% of Americans would agree that our economy is bad.
Considering that Putin said he got 95% of the vote to get himself re-elected, that 48% disapproval or that 95% of the votes in the last election that he got sound a little fishy. I searched all polls, could not find one that indicated the current poll on Biden’s economic job approval. The recent poll on Biden’s total job approval is 54% for and 40% against, this is an average taken from 6 different polls. Pollsesters say this is about average for all Presidents in the past, considering we are still in the Covit recessesion.
Unfortunately when we strip away the surface of the Atlantic Counsel’s rhétorique on US foreign policy, it is about selling proxy wars between groups of US and foreign elites, economic interests, and US protectionism. It is about the selling out the American people and uplifting the needs of political doners and the commercial interests. Think tanks like the Atlantic counsel are payed to think of ways to sugar coat cynical bitter pills, they do not care less about human rights. Go to Amnesty International if you want somewhat balanced opinions about human rights.
Russia calls itself a democracy, the Arab countries you referred to are still 18th century eastern monarchies, no more can be expected, they are what they are.
The worst human rights records have been held for a long time now by Israel & USA.
Were are facts were is the evidence, were is the honesty, were is the credibility
The Brits said it best “… the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210315000875
Any eruptions over North Korea? President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken may not fully appreciate the swirling waters their entering.
I sense North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un won’t give US diplomatic personnel the time between now and the next US president. A meeting would only invite more disagreements and further sanctions. Why allow that to become de rigueur?
Aside from regional states as the Russians and Chinese, Mr. Kim might be inclined for rare consultations with South Korea.
It must be understood that the Jong-Un family will not feel secure till they reunify with South Korea under Kim’s terms. That is their only goal. Every tactic they use politically or militarily is to control all of Korea. Thy want to do this without firing a shoot.
I don’t think it’s a possibility, though until about two years ago I was optimistic. It might be sufficient that both sides continue engagement in trade and family reunifications efforts.
Washington will be the wet blanket and North Korea has better partners in Russia, China, and other nations not pandering to Washington.
That technique didn’t work out well for East Germany, but good for the rest of us. Move business like Samsung, KIA, Hyundia to North Korea and see what happens.
Still Russia begs to be accecpted . Still it issues communicaque for partnership in crisies like Syria,Afghanistan,Iran,and Ukraine. What a pathetic sense of self identity and what a crminal state of affairs to self preservstion!
Russia wants to be part of Europe… Its alliance with China won’t endure.
The way things are shaking out, Europe will be part of Russia.
If Putin can find a capable replacement for when he retires. I guess it’s well that he doesnt have some idiot son.
Russia can never be part of Europe because its culture is much more Asiatic then European.
Eastern Rome and Western Rome are still Roman. I dont revere Rome, but that’s the civilization with a Christian core.
Notice how the usa(just everybody else for that matter) looks the other way when a friend commits the same crimes?
“that might induce Moscow to take steps in line with US interests.”
Even the authors of the article, Emma Ashford and Mathew Burrows, are cretins. why should Moscow care about “US interests” which most often are diametrically opposed to Russian interests,
Even more often “US interests” are diametrically opposed the US interests.
Let me know when we stop engaging with the tyrants of Saudi Arabia because human rights.
Not to mention an apartheid practicing regime’s lobbying group that once said: “You see this napkin? In 24 hours, we could have the signatures of 70 Senators on this napkin.”
Just wanted to let you know that Dreher gave me the heave-ho at TAC. I called his card on his mangled representation of a blog post by a guy I happen to know.
Thanks so much for the kind words the other day. Great to know someone notices a good effort, and not at all surprised it was you. I always enjoyed your comments, too.
I’ll give it a year or so, then be back under a different handle. Best of luck in the meantime.
rkramden66
Roll steady. Don’t know why Dreher sometimes get snitty like that, and sometimes he doesn’t.
Unlike the Russian and North Korean political culture, assassination’s by poisonings your political rivals is not part, of the American political culture and history.
This is a heated argument, not a war. Please choose your words more carefully.
The CIAtlantic Council “article” also blathered about Amerikastan trying to split Russia from China. Best of luck with that, Amerikastanis.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/china-russia-team-up-for-final-frontier/
Perhaps Star Trek cemented the idea that space was the last frontier.
What minerals and riches could possibly be mined from ocean depths besides oil?
I know of one commercial entity that is attempting to mine the ocean floor. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be a popular notion if one considers the technical depth and the distance from Earth to achieve those potential riches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI5AulS82Ds Billionaire Frank Giustra.
If anyone thinks that Russia will give up Crimea without a war, a big one, is delusionary. It is their warm water port, full of Russians.
What is going on here is a coded battle between fp realists and mono-polarists. “Human Rights” was invented by the Trilateralists to displace “International Law” in order to allow more latitude to US policy makers against Cuba, Chile, Central America, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, … for measures illegal under the old UN dispensation. But today the “mono’s” seem to many (insiders) to have exhausted their capital on their gross actions in the Middle-East, now requiring a shift in thinking and the acceptance of a multi-polar world.